Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people, places or events is unintentional.
Content warning: This story explores themes of internalised homophobia and mortality.
Nightmares Before Chris' Mass Chapter II
SUNDAY
THE FRIGHTENED FIVE
Henry Ng sat at the bedside of a boy he could hardly call a friend.
Chris Booth was a boy he knew school. They'd kissed last summer, on the last day of Junior year, but in the months since then Chris hadn't talked about it. Henry understood why - Chris was a popular swimmer, though not an especially popular kid, and deeply closeted. Henry imagined it was hard for Chris, whose father was a priest (who was married and a father before being ordained).
Sebastian Booth had been friends with Henry's father (Arthur Ng) and stepfather (Johnny Roberts). Sebastian, Arthur and Johnny had been victims of abuse in high school, as had their friends Donald Herd and Robert Mason.
They all had sons who were eighteen and they too had all fallen victim to the man who had abused their fathers. The villain was a sinister man named Fredrick Summer. He had been a high school coach who got away with abusing high school boys, and his victims got away with killing him...
So it all worked out nicely in the end.
Apart from the curse.
Was curse the best word? Henry didn't really believe in magic, but that hadn't stopped it being true. Henry and Chris, along with Andrew (Henry's stepbrother), Leroy (Andrew's best friend) and Quinn (Henry's best friend) had been stalked in their dreams by the spirit of Fredrick Summer. Mr Summer had exposed the five boys to humiliating nightmares and antagonised them with their own deep seated fears.
It all came to a head when the frightened five faced their fears one by one. There was also a ritual where they ejaculated on Mr Summer's grave. It had been a weird week. Now, it was almost six weeks later (it would be Christmas eve in two weeks' time) and the nightmares had stopped.
However, before the boys were able to stop Mr Summer, Chris had gotten angry and ran off. Chris ran right into the path of a car. Although injured and taken to hospital, Chris should have made a full recovery. Except, he still hadn't woken up. The doctors were struggling to explain why he remained comatose.
Henry, Quinn, Andrew and Leroy had taken turns visiting Chris. None of them were particularly friends with him, but that was just because of Chris's off-putting personality. Chris could be a hard guy to like. However, they were bonded by what had happened with Mr Summer.
Henry took his turn more often than the others because he felt guilty. He had pressed Chris to admit his fear when he wasn't ready and pushed him away (metaphorically) – right into the road, where Chris had been hit by an SUV. Quinn had surprised Henry by revealing he knew Chris's greatest fear and he had gone into Chris's nightmare to help Chris confront it.
Henry felt sad sitting beside Chris's bed. He looked healthy and peaceful, but sleeping. Chris had been sleeping for six weeks and his parents were wracked with anxiety. Henry suddenly saw the time and realised he was going to be late. His mom worked in the hospital and he was going to drive her home after visiting Chris – her shift finished ten minutes ago. Henry's mom insisted they attend mass, at which Sebastian asked the congregation to pray for Chris's health.
"See you, Chris," Henry said.
It felt strange talking to an unconscious person.
But Chris wasn't unconscious. He wasn't comatose. Chris was sleeping and in his sleep, he was dreaming.
Henry and Quinn hadn't talked about helping Chris face his fear because one's greatest fears were such a personal thing. If they had talked about it, Henry would have discovered Quinn was wrong. Quinn hadn't known Chris's true fear, Chris had not really confronted it. Quinn had inferred the wrong fear and Chris had tried to cheat the curse. Chris hadn't woken up because he wouldn't confront his greatest fear: his sexuality.
And now, three new victims had been dragged in...
Logan Knight, Jack Miller and Dante Torres-Guzman.
...but how? And what were their fears?
Henry unaware of any of this: the error, Chris trapped in his nightmares, Mr Summer not destroyed, and three new playthings for the sinister man. Thus Henry left the room to go to church, unaware of the nightmares before Chris' mass.
MONDAY
DANTE'S INFERNAL
Dante was running.
He was running?
He was running!
Dante broke into a huge grin as he feet landed. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right.
Dante could feel the impact with each strike, but it felt wonderful. He hadn't run like this for weeks. Dante's shorts whipped around his thighs and his t-shirt flapped against this sweating chest...
Except, Dante wasn't wearing shorts.
And he wasn't wearing a t-shirt either.
Dante reorientated himself to space and time. It was a sunny day and warm, but Dante couldn't tell if it was late morning or early afternoon. It was December, wasn't it? December in New Jersey usually averaged 43-48 degrees Fahrenheit (6-8 Celsius), so not exactly warm. Yet, today felt like a summers day.
Was the unseasonable warmth the reason Dante was topless? Had the infernal heat made him take it off? That made sense, but why wasn't he wearing shorts?
Dante became distracted by the power in his legs. The feeling as he built up speed and broke from a run into a sprint. He felt amazing! It didn't even matter that all he was wearing was a pair of frayed and tattered white briefs.
White briefs? Dante hadn't worn white briefs for ten years.
Dante's brown skin was sweating, with beads prickling his forehead, his hairy chest and his armpits. The waistband of the briefs were already damp and his sweating balls left a soggy feeling in the briefs. His inner thighs could feel the prickly heat too.
But he was running, and that was all that mattered.
Dante had recognised and assimilated the heat, his state of undress, the sunshine and the euphoria of running, but he hadn't really cognised the environment. He was running up a short hill on a dusty path. The desire path had been cut through the woods on either side of him a very long time ago.
The trees weren't too close, and there was grass on either side with wild flowers. At the top of the hill, the path curved around the high road the surrounded Dante's old high school. Somewhere below was the running track which meant the football field was at Dante's five o'clock.
Sweat made the kicks of dust from the ground stick to Dante's legs and turned the black hair on them into a sandy thatch. The briefs really weren't ideal running attire. Dante's dick was too big which pushed the waistband down to expose his impressive bush; meanwhile, his big balls spread in the seat of the underpants and created a gap around the leg holes.
Dante knew very well that he was eye candy. He'd turned eighteen during senior year and the Yearbook Committee persuaded him to do a shirtless photoshoot that was described as "soft porn" by the teachers who had to sign off on it. Since joining the college football team, he had done more photoshoots – not just shirtless, but in a jock and football socks while holding his helmet. His football helmet.
The high road path around West Raven High School started to go down, so Dante picked up speed until he was running full throttle. Then Dante's left leg gave way beneath him.
With a grunt, Dante hit the ground and rolled on his shoulder into the bushes at the side of the path. Dante rolled onto his back and touched himself. To check for injuries. There was nothing causing him immediate concern – no breaks or major bleeding. The only real issue was he was sitting in the dirt in nothing but white briefs.
-
they were barely white now. They were covered in dust and dried mud.
-
they were falling apart even worse than before.
Dante sat upright with his butt in dust and his legs bent while he inspected them too. He had a few scrapes and would have bruised in a few days. The only part that really hurt...
The only part that really, really hurt!
Dante's left leg was in pain.
It had been hurting for a while.
That's why Dante had been so surprised he could run. He had been running free from pain for the first time in weeks. Dante felt the back of his calve, half expecting to find a knot, but couldn't feel anything. Dante got to his feet and the pain was back. He limped and tried to ignore the agony by hobbling into a jog as if he could just push through it.
"Dante, we need to talk to you about your MRI."
The voice was like an echo. Like the kind of voice you hear as you fall asleep. It was intrusive. It had been conjured to taunt him.
"Hey, Dante. Hot enough for you?"
Dante looked around to see Aaron and another three guys from the football team. They were dressed in shorts with thigh and knee pad and jerseys over their shoulder pads.
"You look hot," joked Brett.
Brett liked to make homoerotic jokes. Maybe it was because he'd made a pass at Dante one time and drunkenly admitted that he liked sucking cock. If the others knew this, they were as unconcerned as Dante. Dante had let Brett suck his cock that night because he'd failed to score with the hot girl who apparently gave guys titty wanks.
"Cute outfit, Dante," Colin mocked him.
Colin was an asshole.
"You getting hazed?" Drew asked.
"What?" Dante asked.
Dante was dressed in nothing but briefs on a hot day and he'd just been caught by friends; it made sense for them to assume something like hazing.
"If you just wanna run around like that for fun, that's ok too," Brett laughed.
The others laughed with him.
"Yea. Hazing. I think," Dante agreed for want of a better answer.
"Did you hurt yourself?" Aaron asked.
"Because we need you on the team, dude," Drew insisted.
Were they talking about the scuffs and scrapes from his fall? Or the limp?
Dante felt guilty for letting the team down. He felt like he'd let himself down.
"I think I'm ok," Dante said uncertainly.
Dante knew he was not ok. The surgeon had told him so.
"We should check you out," Brett said with a smirk.
"You mean check him over," Colin nudged him.
"All over," Brett agreed.
"Take the briefs off, dude," Aaron said.
"What? Out here?" Dante asked.
Dante was now on the running track and they were in full sight of the school. Classrooms looked out onto the track, so who knew how many classmates had already seen him in these ridiculous briefs. Now his teammates wanted him to take them off?
What the fuck was going on?
As Dante looked around, he spotted a man he didn't recognise. He was dressed like a coach but Dante didn't recognise the guy. He had dark eyes and a smile that cracked his face from ear to ear.
"Who's the spectre?" Dante asked. "I mean... spectator?"
Dante turned his attention to his teammates to see confused expressions and when he looked back, the sinister figure was gone. Yet, the feeling of his presence persisted. Had it always been there? Well, not always, but... it had been there before. The sinister man was like a case of déjà vu.
"There's no-one there, man. Stop stalling," Brett sneered.
"Stalling? Fuck off, Brett. I'm not taking my underwear off," Dante insisted.
Dante meant what he said, yet there was a sensation of inevitability too. He knew what was coming and couldn't stop it. Aaron and Colin crabbed his arms while Drew stooped behind him to hold his ankles and stop him kicking. This left Brett with the enviable task of pulling the briefs down.
Brett tugged them down with a quick pull which caused Dante's dick to flick and slap against his abdomen. Brett chucked at the sound and pulled the briefs all the way to the ground. Dante felt the heat of the sun against his totally naked skin; there was hardly any breeze, but Dante was acutely aware of his exposure. Now that his genitals and ass were as exposed as his chest and legs, Dante could feel the breath of the air and the kiss of the sun everywhere.
"Feed me, Dante."
Dante looked down at Brett, but was it him who had spoken?
Brett pushed his face into Dante's groin and sniffed the hefty balls. He licked the sweaty gonads and then kissed Dante's exposed dick. Dante's flaccid dick was a chunky four inches that grew to seven inches once he was hard.
Why was Dante back at his old high school? The football stadium in the distance wasn't even there now. A new one was being built. Could his classmates see him? Exposed and vulnerable?
Dante felt his flaccid cock surrounded by lips and tongue.
Dante looked down at Brett and watched as the young man slurped on semi-hard cock. Brett came out a year ago, Dante recalled. Not when they were at high school – after that. Not now. But was now... now? Dante wasn't sure when it was. It shouldn't be summer. It was December.
Dante started to get hard as Brett licked and suckled on his cock.
"Gross, Dante! You getting hard because a guy's sucking your cock?" Aaron criticised.
"Couch will drop you if he finds out you're a homo," Colin insisted.
Dante wasn't a homo! What about the boy sucking his cock?
Dante and the others on the old team hadn't been surprised when they found out Brett was gay. They were more surprised that he came out when his college was linked to his sponsorship; but, his new teammates didn't seem bothered by it either. Fucking wokeness gone mad! What happened to relentless bullying?
As long as Brett didn't try to suck their dicks, they were cool about it.
And on that point, Dante wasn't sure he was cool about Brett sucking his dick. Not with other people watching. Not with the school overlooking him. Yet, Dante wasn't averse to getting oral from a boy. A BJ is a BJ. Dante wasn't sure when Aaron and Colin had let go of his arms. How long had Dante been standing without restraint while being sucked off by another guy?
Aaron, Colin and Drew stood and watched Brett as he sucked Dante's cock. Dante was now fully erect and his impressive cock was soon wrapped by a hand rather than a mouth. Brett jerked it, and Dante let him. The eyes of the spectators was more of a turn on that Dante expected. Did he like being watched? Dante certainly had the feeling that someone was enjoying the voyeurism. It was as if Dante could feel the pleasure derived from watching boys going at it...
But where was that feeling coming from? Aaron, Colin and Drew?
For a brief moment, none of them were there.
For a brief moment it was like the pain in his leg that had vanished and allowed him to run.
Then? Snap! The feeling was gone, the moment was gone, and his three friends were standing there watching him. Had they been one man, just for a moment? A man with a grin and dark eyes?
Brett sucked again and Dante let out a moan.
"Oh, I think he likes it," Aaron laughed.
"Who doesn't like getting sucked off?" Colin pointed out.
"By a dude?" Drew asked sceptically.
"A mouth's a mouth," Colin replied.
Dante had to admit, well he didn't have to but he would, Brett was a good cock sucker. Brett's mouth gave attention to the head and then swallowed the shaft; he made Dante's cock slick and lubed with precum mixed with saliva.
Why was this happening?
Dante tried to rationalise the narrative. He'd been running, he fell, he was stripped, now he was getting sucked off? While the sinister man watched... no, while his friends watched. Dante curled his toes as the head of his cock was licked and kissed by Brett, taking him closer to orgasm. Brett must have experience with sucking dick, because he took Dante's cock back into his mouth just in time for Dante to squirt all over his tongue.
Dante's orgasm was a wonderful release. It felt it like an anaesthetic, spreading warmth throughout his body and numbing his pain. The euphoria that flowed lasted until Dante opened his eyes. He hadn't even realised he had closed them.
Dante was still standing naked in the grounds of his old high school, next to the football field where he had got his start. Aaron, Brett, Colin and Drew were gone. Dante had been abandoned.
He looked up at the edifice of the school building and felt like he was being watched. At every window, shapes moves as if his humiliation, his blowjob, his nudity was being watched, but no-one wanted to help.
Or perhaps they couldn't help?
"Dante?"
"Dante?"
Dante jolted awake.
Dante was lying in bed in West Raven Hospital. He glanced at this watch to discover it was mid-morning.
"Have you had the case conference already?" Dante asked without pleasantries.
Doctor Paul Ramsingh was a surgeon specialising on orthopaedic oncology. He'd already given Dante bad news and he was about to tell the young man more things he didn't want to hear.
"Good morning, Dante. Yes. We finished half an hour ago," Dr Ramsingh replied.
"Ok. So, what are my options?" Dante asked.
"Do you have anyone you'd like to be here while we discuss this?" the surgeon replied cautiously.
The man knew Dante did not get along with his parents, but his brother was attentive enough.
"Christo is working today," Dante replied. "Just tell me."
Dante's mood had shifted from hopeful and engaged to sullen and standoffish.
"As we discussed last time, the MRI of your left leg shows a high grade osteosarcoma with resultant skeletal muscle wasting," Dr Ramsingh related clinically. "That's what's been causing your pain and..."
"I know all this," Dante interrupted.
Dr Ramsingh didn't take the hostility personally. He felt sorry for the young man.
"The pain and fatigue are basically gone now," Dante challenged as if hoping it meant he was all better.
"The fatigue has reduced because we gave you red blood cells. The pain is gone because we're giving you oxycodone," Dr Ramsingh answered.
Dante huffed and crossed his arms defensively.
"Dante, the case conference looked at your blood work and all your scans," the man replied carefully. "I know that you were hoping for a better option than the one I discussed..."
"We are not doing that!" Dante snapped.
"But," Dr Ramsingh persisted. "The conference agrees that neither radiotherapy nor chemotherapy alone would be sufficient to eradicate the cancer. A limb salvaging operation will not be possible. You would be left with a lower leg that would not be functional."
Dante leaned back in the bed and felt tears coming to his eyes. Fuck! He was a twenty four year old man, not a kid. He wasn't a fucking pussy, so why was he crying?
"Dante?" Dr Ramsingh said gently. "If you don't consider a below knee amputation, the cancer will likely spread and..."
Dr Ramsingh didn't get the chance to finish.
"I'll die?" Dante growled. "That's my option? Become a fucking cripple or die? What if I choose to die?"
The doctor wore an expression of such wrenched sympathy that Dante miserable.
"It would be very painful," Dr Ramsingh cautioned honestly.
"Please leave," Dante dismissed him in a trembling voice.
Dante blinked tears from his eyes.
Dante had played football all through high school. When he went to West Raven University, he majored in Communications and Media. Since playing for the West Raven's, he'd become a local celebrity and the team was doing better than it had in thirty years. Dante could only afford his medical bills because his scholarship and his insurance which was tied to his performance on the field. Now he was being told he had to loss his leg? It was like a bad dream.
Worst of all, this wasn't some erotic nightmare. This was reality and he was stuck with it. The doctor hadn't moved, but he had stayed quiet.
"I'm sorry, man. It's not your fault," Dante admitted tearfully.
"No. I understand," the surgeon replied.
"I can't do this," Dante insisted.
"It's a big decision. I have space this week, if you come around," Dr Ramsingh said hopefully.
It was two weeks until Christmas and Dante was facing the hardest choice of his life. He had only days to face his fear, which was surely impossible. Impossible!
"I can't do this," Dante repeated.
DEEP DIVE
The lights flickered and created the impression of an ominous tunnel to what was merely a hospital corridor. Chris was barefoot and almost naked. As he looked down the length of the jump scare corridor, Chris felt vulnerable.
Wearing nothing but speedos as he walked along the corridor was almost worse than being naked. No, not worse, but a different kind of bad. In the swimwear, Chris's junk and ass were left to the imagination and that imagination could be very generous or very stingy.
There was no-one to see him at the moment, which left Chris feeling lonely and isolated. His bare skin was raised with gooseflesh, his nipples were hard and his bare feet caused Chris to wince as he walked along the cold floor.
In a previous nightmare, Chris had been relentlessly ridiculed by hospital staff, patients and visitors for having a tiny penis. The doctors, nurses and orderlies pulled his speedos down and then pointed, laughed and made fun of his shaved genitals.
This time, the isolation mocked him.
Chris was kept perpetually stressed by Mr Summer and his cruel imagination.
There was something about this hospital that kept pulling Chris back in. His nightmares took him other places, but the hospital was the epicentre. Oftentimes, Chris found himself walking down the cold and poorly lit hospital corridor only to come upon a totally unrelated scenario.
Chris passed a blood red door, a red so dark it was nearly black. With olive green panels, the door almost looked striped. The paint was grisly and old. It didn't belong in a hospital, where every other door was clean and clinical. Chris passed it by, like he always did.
An ominous feeling surrounded Chris. The nearly naked diver continued to walk, but it was the feeling like he was being watched the haunted him. Chris couldn't decide if the scopaesthesia was a deliberate artifact or not. Did My Summer want Chris to feel like he was always being watched? That there was no escape? Or was it Chris himself that perceived he always under observation? Was it an evolutionary advantage that let Chris feel that unrelenting gaze?
Or was it paranoia?
Maybe he wasn't being watched?
"I can see you."
Mr Summer's voice came out of the air just behind Chris; it was so close that Chris felt the breath and saw the puff of condensation in his periphery. Yet, when Chris whirled around, he was alone in the corridor.
"Wow. Nice outfit."
The voice that spoke this time was soft and sweet.
Chris turned to see a face he thought he recognised. The face looking back at him also showed recognition. The young man was tall but very thin, like a matchstick man. He had the appearance of someone who had never been particularly big and who had lost a lot of weight. He had pale skin, a face with soft features and very short, fair hair. His green eyes were stunningly beautiful.
The young man was wearing a hospital gown that revealed skinny chicken legs and the neckline was low enough to exposed a bony sternum with flickers of chest hair.
"Oh? Yea?" Chris replied sheepishly. "I think they ran out of gowns so gave me these instead."
Chris gestured to the speedos.
"Oh, so the hospital has been getting my suggestions," he joked.
This felt different. Meeting this young man wasn't like the life model decoys that usually populated Chris's dreams. It felt more like when he had shared dreams with Quinn. Was this person real?
"I'm Chris," he offered a hand.
"Jack," he replied.
Chris was aware that his grip was stronger than Jack's and that his biceps looked huge compared to Jack's skeletal limb. Jack had long, cool fingers that wrapped around Chris' hand. As much as Chris felt the coldness of cadaver-like fingers, Jack felt the warmth of a young and virile hand; he let it go and with it the warmth of Chris' skin.
"Have we met before?" Chris asked.
"Oh, here we go," Jack replied cheerily. "It's been a long time since a cute guy hit on me."
Jack rubbed his hands with glee. He was joking, but Jack could tell Chris had not taken it as such.
"I wasn't hitting on you," Chris insisted as little too vehemently.
"..." Jack replied and then added, "Ok."
Chris felt stupid for being so defensive.
Chris suddenly realised where he recognised Jack from. His dream a few nights ago... was it a few nights ago? Time moved differently here. In his dream a few nights ago, when Chris had been sucked into a monstrously large cock and balls, Jack had been there.
"Are you... are you a real person?" Chris asked.
Jack looked perplexed for a moment.
"Or a dream?" Chris asked, but he felt very silly now.
"A dream all a dream, that ends in nothing..." Jack quoted.
"Huh?" Chris answered.
"A Tale of Two Cities," Jack beamed.
"Shakespeare?" Chris guessed.
"Charles Dickens," Jack corrected him. "Jeremy and I read it together."
"Jeremy?" Chris asked.
"My husband," Jack responded despondently. "What do you mean am I a real person?"
Jack felt different to the other `people' Chris encountered in his dreams. When Mr Summer showed himself he was sometimes disguised. Or the sinister man acted through another character, but Chris always recognised him. The NPC's that filled Chris's nightmares were hollow, but Jack felt real – like Mr Summer, but most certainly not his tormentor.
"Do you know we're in a dream? A nightmare..." Chris insisted. "My nightmare, probably."
If Jack was a real person, maybe he could help. Chris felt a moment of excitement. He could almost forget he was exposed to a stranger in just a pair of speedos.
"Oh... That's weird," Jack replied.
"But this is a good thing. When you wake up you can tell my friends that I'm stuck here and they can find a way to help me," Chris said excitedly.
Unless there was already a way to help himself? By being honest. By facing his fear?
Nah, his friends will have to save him.
"It's good to see you up and about, Chris," said a nurse who suddenly interrupted the conversation.
Chris and Jack found the corridor well-lit and the temperature approaching normal. The transition from the creepy horror of an asylum to the pastel painted and LED lit corridor of the hospital was as quick as flicking a switch.
"Thanks," Chris replied.
Chris wasn't sure why he'd left his room in just a pair of speedos. This thought tugged him back into the bizarre narrative of his dream. The nurse was cute and his name was Riaz.
Riaz had dreamy eyes.
Riaz had wonderfully brown eyes, his hair was jet black and shaved at the side. However, he had long, coiffed hair on top. His skin was very brown and he had stubble across his chin and cheeks.
"How do you prepare yourself mentally?" Riaz asked.
"How do I what?" Chris asked uncertainly.
"For a competition?" Riaz asked. "How do you prepare yourself mentally for standing around in tiny trunks in front of an audience?"
"Is that a standard nurse question?" Jack interrupted. "I usually get asked if I have any pain?"
Riaz's head turned eerily in Jack's direction; the rest of his body didn't move so the effect was unsettling. The nurse just looked at Jack for a moment before his neck snapped back to Chris.
"Follow me back to your room, Chris," said Riaz. "You can't stand around here posing all day."
"I wasn't posing," Chris complained.
Riaz walked to the nearest door, turned the handle, and pushed the door inwards. He stepped across the threshold and Chris followed, but beyond the door was not part of the hospital. Instead, Chris found himself beside the school swimming pool. Chris felt Jack behind him, the young man pressing against his skin as he squeezed past him.
Jack seemed perplexed by the sudden change of venue.
"Oh it's a dream," Jack said as if the peculiarity all made sense now.
Chris could guess that Jack had been having other vivid dreams that masqueraded as reality.
"I did tell you," Chris said.
"It's strange. When you know it's a dream, you notice all the odd things," Jack commented. "Maybe we can change what's happening?"
"He doesn't like it when you do that," Chris warned.
"Who?" Jack asked.
"Mr Summer. He controls this place. He doesn't like it when you mess with the dreams," Chris said. "Just play along."
"Why?" Jack scoffed.
The door from the hospital to the poolside slammed shut, causing Chris and Jack to jump. No-one else seemed to notice. The stands were filled with students who had come to watch the competition and around the edge of the pool were boys from Chris' school and rivals.
Riaz was stell dressed as a nurse.
Chris was appropriately dressed in his speedos.
Jack was still wearing a hospital gown.
Jack was just contemplating the discord between the hospital and school sports scenario when he was accosted. A sudden throng of speedo clad boys pressed around Chris, Jack and Riaz; they swept Jack along like a leaf in a river while Chris and Riaz remained fixed like rocks.
"Chris?" Jack called out but he couldn't stop himself being separated. "Oh no, I'm surrounded boy boys in speedos. This is terrible."
Chris chuckled at the insincere expression of peril. Chris decided he liked Jack. He seemed nice.
"Feed me, Chris," said a familiar, sinister voice.
Feed me, Mr Summer would say. But the sinister ghoul was never sated. Perhaps because Chris was his only food. Or was he? If Jack was here, Mr Summer may have found new morsels.
Chris realised hadn't been paying attention. He looked back at Riaz who was now holding a microphone and there was a cameraman beside him. As often happens in dreams, Chirs had an awareness of what was going on beyond the context of just the visual. Chris was about to be interviewed about his performance, but Riaz was still dressed as a nurse. This was a deliberate but disconcerting reminder of where Chris was in the real world. Chris looked around to see everyone was looking at him. Behind Chris, where the door had been, there was nothing but poolside paraphernalia.
The voice asking to be fed had come from Riaz, but it hadn't been Riaz's voice. When Riaz spoke again, it was in his own voice, though now tempered as if being scripted.
"So, Chris. Swimming and diving?" Riaz said. "Do you do sport because you can't tell Dickens from Shakespeare?"
"No. I'm good at it," Chris replied grumpily.
"Does thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet fool?" Riaz asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "Do you enjoy wearing the trunks as much as you enjoy looking at other boys wearing them?"
"That's... no..." Chris protested and was already feeling flustered.
"You enjoy looking at boys more than wearing trunks yourself?" Riaz asked, but it sounded like a statement.
There was sniggering from his peers as Chris squirmed at the provocative questioning. No-one at school knew he was gay and Chris didn't want them to know. Chris still wasn't ready to face it himself, as evidenced by the repeated torment in his nightmares.
"I don't look at other guys in trunks. I concentrate on diving," Chris responded.
Chris was hoping to get the interview back on track even though, rationally, he knew there was no interview. Riaz smirked at Chris which made him feel pathetic. However, something else was happening. Chris could feel his skin tingling as if he was being touched. He looked over his shoulder but there was no-one behind him. Yet, Chris would have sworn he felt a hand on the back of his thigh.
"Is it hard to perform under pressure?" Riaz asked.
Chris' attention returned to Riaz the interviewer in a nurses uniform.
"I'm used to the pressure," Chris started to reply but he felt his thigh being touched again.
Chris didn't look this time because he knew there was no-one touching him, yet he could still feel the phantom caressing of his inner thigh. Chris was excited as the touch rubbed against his speedo-covered taint. The thin fabric exacerbating rather than muting the feel of the touch.
"Do you feel pressure right now?" Riaz asked.
It was like a fantasy. When you close your eyes and imagine being kissed or touched. When you touch yourself an imagine it's a boy. Chris could feel a hand on his ass, squeezing the cheeks, and his cock was getting hard. But the camera! The interview! He couldn't throw a boner while being interviewed?
"Do you like the pressure?" Riaz continued, with a smirk that spread too wide across his face.
The smile was grotesque.
"I... I..." Chris struggled to respond.
The pressure was no longer squeezing his ass, but now stroking his cock. Chris's erection filled the front of his speedo, inflating towards his right hip.
"Is the pressure too much?" Riaz pressed.
Chris could feel lips against his cock. The fantastic lips were kissing the head and then a tongue licked the sensitive bulge until it was nice and wet. It was hard to tell what had made Chris' speedo wetter, the tonguing or the precum oozing into the fabric.
"So, Chris... we can see you're circumcised," Riaz said humiliatingly. "Do you think this affects your performance compared to uncircumcised divers?"
The camera was zooming in on Chris' erection. Chris was embarrassed to be hard in the first place, but calling attention to it had caused his classmates to laugh. Anyone who saw the interview would laugh at him too.
"What?" Chris responded. "Why? Why would that make any difference?"
Riaz stepped forward and pushed three fingers into the front of Chris' speedo. Chris gasped and looked in shock at the smirking face of the nurse. Riaz's fingertips were touching the root of Chris' cock and the fantasy touching was now gently cupping his balls. The invisible hand was gentle and titillating.
Riaz pulled the front of Chris' speedo and the camera took up a position to look inside. The head and half the shaft were still hidden, but the root of Chris' cock and a hint of testicle were now being recorded. What kind of post-match interview was this?
Was it even post-match? Was it pre-match?
That was the thing about dreams and nightmares, the timing was all off and the more you thought about the logic of it, the less it made sense.
"Do you shave, Chris?" Riaz asked.
"A lot of swimmers and divers shave," Chris defended himself.
"But do you?" Riaz scoffed.
"I trim," Chris admitted.
"Chris Booth shaves his pubic hair," Riaz addressed the camera and surrounding audience. "Is it to make yourself more appealing to men?"
Riaz let go of the speedo and the waistband snapped loudly with perverse satisfaction. The erection inside the trunks remained hot and hard. Nearly six and a half inches of cock was trapped inside the tiny swimwear, which felt tighter than before.
"No," Chris answered.
At the back, Chris imagined fingers slipping inside. A finger was now running up and down his crack. Why was he fantasising about all this now? While he was being interviewed and wearing so little?
"Do you prefer twinks or bears?" Riaz asked.
"I'm not... I don't..." Chris tried to protest.
Chris remembered the time he kissed Henry Ng at the end of Junior Year. Plus, Quinn's efforts to help him escaped the nightmare world, the hypnoscape, had endeared the boy to him. Chris had never really thought about what kind of guy he was attracted to because he was so busy trying not to be.
"Do you prefer to top or bottom?" Riaz asked.
Chris felt the pressure on his cock increasing as the trunks seemed to shrink. The head of his cock had already been so tightly wrapped that the camera could see he was circumcised, but now the seer fabric was even more tightly wrapped that the veins on the shaft could be seen.
"Neither," Chris replied honestly.
"Oh, you're a virgin?" Riaz announced to everyone.
The crowd around him laughed.
"Yes. I mean no," Chris got increasingly flustered.
"You think about having sex with men so much, it must feel like you're not a virgin. Is that what you mean, Chris?" Riaz asked.
Chris' cock squeezed a squirt of precum. The wet spot spread on his speedo and Chris felt a new sense of humiliation. Was he about to cum during an interview? In front of all his classmates? While being asked deeply personal questions?
"Chris, your penis is very hard," Riaz chuckled.
Chris felt like lips were sucking his cock through the fabric now. The pleasure was intense.
The fantasy was so real.
Chris was aware of the nightmare scenario, but he felt powerless to change its course. Any second now, he was going to cum.
"Do you want to touch yourself, Chris?" Riaz asked. "Perhaps you would like one of your classmates to touch you?"
"Stop!" Chris pleaded. "Stop it. Please stop."
"Make me," Riaz said coldly.
Chris couldn't do that.
Instead, Chris felt his hard cock squeezed even tighter by the speedo until the fabric was wrapped around his member like a second skin. The feeling of invisible hands stroking his thighs and his ass intensified and the sucking feeling on his cock peaked.
Chris came in the speedo with the gush of sludgy sperm having nowhere to go but spread around the seat of his swimwear and finally leak around the leg holes.
"Chris, did you just ejaculate?" Riaz asked.
"No... no..." Chris almost begged.
"You did! We can see spunk running down your legs," Riaz continued. "This interview will be broadcast to everyone you know. Aren't you ashamed of yourself for being such a sissy boy? Aren't you embarrassed about being such a filthy homo?"
"What the hell is go on?" asked Jack.
Like a spell being broken, Chris' attention snapped from Riaz's litany of insults to the young man who was sharing his dream. Jack had been swept aside by Mr Summer's influence, making Jack an observer rather than participant. Mr Summer's lack of concentration on the young man had freed Jack to return from his exile.
"Are all your nightmares like this?" Jack asked.
"Like what?" Chris asked ashamedly.
Chris was covering his soiled crotch. He felt exposed in a totally different way to Jack, because Jack was real. Chris felt exposed in his swimwear, his legs and chest were bare.
"Well... so sexual for one thing," Jack commented.
"Mr Summer likes them that way," Chris replied.
It was only now that Chris noticed Riaz had changed. He had been animated and interested during the interview and now he was vacant; he was little more than a husk as if his mind had been vacated.
"Mr Summer likes to make scenarios and weird things happen," Chris replied.
"And who is Mr Summer?" Jack asked. "Also, we can sit down, please? I'm... I'm really..."
Jack looked pale and breathless. Chris moved instinctively to the young man's side. Jack looked like he might fall down, so Chris took his arm as the moved to the side of the pool. With Jack sat down, Chris found a towel to wrap around himself. Jack looked incongruous sat next to the school pool in a hospital gown, his bare legs sticking out of the bottom of the skirt.
"So who is Mr Summer?" Jack repeated.
"Mr Summer was a high school coach who abused his students. One of them was my dad. My dad and his friends... we think..." Chris hesitated to say too much.
Before Chris had fallen into a sleep he couldn't wake up from, his friends... were they friends? ...his friends had realised their dads probably killed Mr Summer and buried his body in an unmarked grave. It was perhaps not a good idea to tell strangers this detail.
"My dad and his friends were cursed by him for turning on him," Chris said more ambiguously. "His grave was disturbed and he's been haunting my dreams ever since."
Jack looked sceptical. This was nonsense.
Yet, Jack had been having weird dreams for a few nights... actually, Jack couldn't tell how long it was.
"Just your dreams?" Jack asked.
"My friends too, but they escaped... They're not really my friends. I don't really have friends," Chris said sourly.
Jack felt sorry for him. He had heard the things being said to Chris and instinctively knew the real nightmare was not the humiliation of arousal, but the humiliation of being exposed as gay in high school.
"Mr Summer can look like different people if he wants," Chris added.
"Like that hot nurse, right?" Jack asked.
"I guess so," Chris agreed with a shrug.
"And your friends escaped? How?" Jack asked.
"They faced their fear," Chris replied and now he refused to meet Jack's eyes. "But I can't do that."
There was a note of finality in Chris' tone that Jack didn't challenge.
"But you can," Chris added brightly.
"Why am I here, Chris?" Jack asked. "I don't know you or Mr Summer or anything about this whole fucked up thing. How did I end up in your nightmare?"
"I don't know," Chris said testily.
It was a good question though.
"The point is, I can't wake up. I was in a car accident," Chris remembered it happening and was aware of the passage of time ever since, but he had never woken up. "I don't know if it's something Mr Summer did, or maybe because the others broke the curse while I was still sleeping, but I'm trapped in here."
"What do you want me to do about it?" Jack asked.
"You can tell my friends I'm trapped so they can help me," Chris responded. "Help us. All you need to do is tell them when you wake up..."
"I can't," Jack said.
"What do you mean you can't?" Chris asked.
Jack looked pained for a moment.
"Chris, I don't know why we're sharing this dream, but I can't tell your friends your trapped..." Jack said gently.
"Maybe if we figure out your fear, you can get out and tell them?" Chris interjected.
"I know my fear already," Jack said certainly. "The thing in room 101 is the worst thing in the world."
Chris recognised the quote this time, but didn't know what the young man was talking about.
"Chris, I literally can't wake up because I'm dying..." Jack said sadly. "I'm dying... very soon."
END OF CHAPTER II
TO BE CONTINUED...
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My stories so far:
https://www.nifty.org/nifty/authors.html#jforrester
Complete series: School Exhibitionism, The Symposium, The Embarrassment of Riches, Do As You're Told, A Series of Embarrassing Events, and Noah the Embarrassed Nudist.
Also: Anthology, and The SEX Men.
Short stories: Aiden's Accidental Autoerotic Assignment, Jogging Joe's Jaunty Journey and Peter's Past Posing Pictures.